In Arizona a few weeks ago, Christel Wallace discovered a letter written in Chinese inside the plastic pocket of a handbag she had just purchased at Walmart.
Curious to find out what the letter said, her daughter-in-law, Laura Barnhart-Wallace, posted a photo of the note on Facebook, asking if anyone could translate it for her.
The content is so shocking, the Wallace family had the translation verified by three different people. The letter appears to be a call for help from a Chinese prisoner, detailing the horrific conditions they are living in.
The letter says the prisoners are beaten and suffer from a lack of food and medical care. The desperate tone of the letter is undeniable:
"Prison in China is unlike prison in America, it's worse than the life of a horse, cow, goat, pig, or dog."
According to the local news channel KVOA, the message gives precise details about a Chinese prison in the south of Guangxi province. The letter also indicates that inmates must work 14 hours per day without a break or a meal.
And when they are lucky enough to be fed, the food is without oil and salt. Their work days sometimes extend beyond midnight and if they don't complete their tasks, they are beaten.
Prisoners are paid 2,000 yuan per month ($290), but if they get sick and need medical attention, the cost is deducted from their monthly salary.
Repeated human rights violations
This isn't the first time China has been called out for human rights violations, Dazed magazine points out. While prison labor was mostly abolished in 2013, China doesn't seem to have changed its ways.
In 2015, several similar letters were found in the UK (in Belfast and Swansea) inside clothing purchased at Primark stores.
A former prisoner from the Masanjia camp told the New York Times he had written at least twenty such letters during his two years of incarceration, hoping to reach American shops with the message.
One of his letters was found in a box of Halloween decorations by someone in Oregon in 2013. Unfortunately, the calls for help don't seem to be having much of an impact on the Chinese government, as is evidenced by this additional scandal.
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